Sperm Donor Adventures: the first installment

Sperm Donor Adventures: the first installment
(c) Melina Magdalena (2007)

They ask, because they cannot imagine themselves in my position. They want to better understand who I am. They do not ask because they are malicious; because they want to control me; or because they believe I do not have the right to make such choices. People ask, because they are curious.

So what is it about their questions, and about being the person who is questioned, that makes me feel I need to justify my choices?

Imagine me, a married woman of 36, suddenly discovering I have fallen accidentally pregnant. I thought my symptoms were an ovarian cyst … early menopause … some weird virus … New life has taken root in my womb, and I never saw it coming.

What questions would I be asked in this situation?

“Will you need to build an extension on your house!”
“How will it feel to be an older mother?”
“Will you have an amniocentesis?”
“What will your other children think?”
“I would have thought by now, you’d know where babies come from!”

Not

“Why would you want another child?”
“Will you have the baby?”
“Think of what you’ll be giving up.”
“Why do this to yourself?”
“How will your husband cope?”

It reminds me of those questions that are asked of rape victims, which seem so ludicrous when asked of victims of theft. The situation is not different enough to warrant such a different style of interrogation, but in real life, that’s what happens.

I do not need to justify my choice.

When justification is demanded because I already have two children, it makes me feel as though the questioner believes I do not deserve to have more children. Perhaps he believes there are already too many children being born on this planet? Perhaps he believes I would not love another child as much as I love the ones I already have? And perhaps he believes that if he helped me have another child, I could easily hand that child over for him because – after all, I’ve already raised two.

When justification is demanded because of the changes it would make in my lifestyle, since I’m on the brink of so-called freedom, it makes me wonder about the quality of freedom and its impact on my life. Does my life seem so empty and meaningless as it is right now? Have I achieved nothing of value while I’ve been mothering? And should I blame the fact that I have been a mother for the past 17 years on the way I live? What is wrong with living in a family? These kinds of questions make me feel devalued and pitied.

When justification is demanded because of my sexuality, I feel angry. Such questions can make me feel as though I am under fire because I have a boy child and I have a girl child. I wonder whether the questioner really believes I have betrayed my lesbian self as someone who would contribute to the patriarchy by bearing and raising boy children? I wonder why such questioners doubt my ability and right to mother boy children and girl children in this, the world we live in? I wonder why I am not welcome as a lesbian, as a woman, in the rarified circles they inhabit? I don’t wonder why I don’t wish to separate myself and refuse to participate in the real world.

There are also those who question my right to mother at all, because I am a lesbian. I wonder what I would have to change about myself in order to fit into the box these questioners have ready for me? Why I would have to cage and chain myself in order to attain the natural rights I have by virtue of being a woman? I wonder what they think I should have done with the children I’ve already borne, since the anomaly of lesbian mother is too much for them to cope with?

Most often, justification is demanded because I am single. What if I offered the following scenario?

Imagine me, a single woman of 36, suddenly discovering I have fallen accidentally pregnant. I had thought my symptoms were an ovarian cyst … early menopause … some weird virus … New life has taken root in my womb, and I never saw it coming. Can’t remember who the father was, so I guess he’s out of the picture anyway.

OR

Oh no! My boyfriend is really going to hit the roof now. He’ll hate my body because I’ll get fat, and he’ll resent the fact that he has to support me and the baby. He never wanted children. He’ll say I tricked him into this.

And what about this one?

Imagine me, a single woman of 36, hearing my biological clock tick every minute of every day. Watching the menstrual flow and feeling with every contraction of my empty womb that hope of new life is being pulled irrevocably down the drain. I didn’t want children when I was in my 20s. Now I can think of nothing else.

But wait – we’re talking about me, and my situation. When I am asked to justify my choice on the basis that I am single, I wonder why being a mother must be defined by being part of a couple? A woman who becomes a wife does not necessarily become a mother, any more than a man who becomes a husband necessarily becomes a father.

I wonder about those Centrelink ads “Support the System that Supports You”. When will such questioners emerge from the Dark Ages of the 1950s and realize that just because a mother embarks on a live-in sexual relationship, her sexual partner has not agreed to take on the responsibility for paying board, rent and living expenses for himself, let alone for his girlfriend and her children? She likely has to pay for him as well as her family, so why remove the supports that enable her to survive? Why deprive her of the right to a sexual partnership because she is a single mother?

This line of questioning is outrageous. There is no anomaly in the collocation of ‘single’ and ‘mother’. There is no natural obligation on the part of a man who has sex with a woman to support her, and her child. Social convention; legal obligation – yes, these exist, but I wonder why such questioners doubt a woman’s capability of mothering a child just because the child’s natural father may not be present to support her?

Almost every mother I know, even in these days of metrosexual sensitive new age co-parenting couples, spends at least 80% of her time as a single mother. These mothers may be materially more secure; they may have more access to resources; and perhaps that 20% of the time when they receive hands-on parenting support from their partner makes a difference in the quality of their lives? The fact remains that even within their role as one-half of the socially sanctioned heterosexual couple, these mothers operate almost the same as single mothers.

Such questioners invariably move on to their next line of attack. They ask a very simple question: But what about the children?

When justification is demanded on behalf of the rights of children to grow up happy and healthy, I wonder where the questioners have been burying their heads? There have always been single mothers, and there will always be children of single mothers. I wonder how these questioners can live with themselves, when they deny the evidence of the link between poverty and success? I wonder why these questioners can believe my children are less better off and less deserving than the children of couples who abuse them? I wonder why these questioners continue to insult and punish single mothers by depriving their children of the supports and resources that would assist them in raising fine, strong, healthy, happy young people?

I do not need to justify my choice.

I choose to have more children, because I choose to have more children. This choice becomes me.

world weary

world weary
(c) Melina Magdalena (2007)

- first draft -

last night
twilight
indigo sky
luminous
glowing
almost black
silhouettes
gum trees
branches spread
welcome the night
timeless
wind blowing
reminding me of
someplace
sometime
something
not cold
not hot
leaves danced
and
how I wanted
at that moment
to go home
but home
is
was
never will be
anywhere
on this earth